The benefits of oxygen in sustaining life beyond the obvious have been known for many years. In recent years, more and more uses of purified oxygen and oxygen enriched atmospheres has been discovered. Oxygen usage in the treatment of respiratory distress from emphysema and other pulmonary disorders has been available for many years. However, treatment of Caisson's disease with enriched atmospheres in hyperbaric chambers has led to the discovery of enriched atmosphere wound treatment at elevated pressures. Day after day, the benefits of oxygen have been discovered from medical applications to aquaculture, disinfecting, cleaning and sanitizing and nutrition. Purified oxygen has been available from large suppliers who have placed large manufacturing facilities throughout the country and world in order to deliver special gases including oxygen. These facilities have barely addressed a portion of the global demand for oxygen. Areas where the infrastructure is challenged must do without the benefits of oxygen or pay a high price to obtain the needed gas.
A system that can remove the oxygen from the air, purify it, safely compress it to a level in which it can be stored either in a cascade system for distribution within a medical facility or into portable containers for transportation is needed. This system should also have the capability to continuously monitor the gas and the concentration it will be blending the gas with other gases. Today, the compression of oxygen has been limited to extremely expensive high volume systems used by the cryogenic companies or to small air cooled compressors. The latter with extreme danger due to materials compatibility and heat generated. These smaller systems also are only capable of compressing to less than 2,700 pounds per square inch due to these situations.
Oxygen generation has been available for many years. However, the ability to economically compress the gas to a level to store it for later use has not been available. Once the gas reaches a certain pressure, the gas becomes unstable due to the temperature developed reaching those pressures. The natural gas laws state that the temperature will rise as work is put into the compression of the gas. This added temperature comes from the excitation of molecules from the added work, from the friction of the mechanical process and the friction of the gas passing through an orifice. This temperature will build until the system reaches equilibrium through heat dissipation or the gas will super heat. The faster the heat is removed, the more efficient and safer the system will be. Current compression systems remove the heat using convection. That is heat removal using forced air.
Thus, there exists a need for a system that efficiently compresses and stores gas at a pressure higher than the conventional transport bottle pressure of about 3,000 psig and is able to deliver low pressure inlet gas, low pressure purified gas, high pressure purified gas, high pressure inlet gas or mixtures thereof through blending.